Energy Futures Surge
On Weather Worries

Dow Jones Newswires

Updated Sept. 18, 1998 6:35 p.m. ET

NEW YORK -- Energy futures rallied sharply Friday on the New York Mercantile Exchange, as concerns about two tropical weather disturbances lifted the October crude oil futures contract to an 11-week high.

The contract broke through the psychologically important $15-a-barrel level early Friday amid growing concerns that a tropical depression in the Gulf of Mexico and a rising hurricane in the eastern Atlantic threatened to disrupt...